Tornado damages homes, vehicles near Lackland Air Force Base

Published 12:02 am, Thursday, October 13, 2011

A small tornado damaged a handful of houses and trucks at a post office in Southwest San Antonio early Sunday as storms dumped 3 inches of rain or more on the region.

Lisa Campos, 35, forgot to close the windows of her home in the 100 block of El Ray Drive and was awakened shortly after 1 a.m.

“It sounded like a whistle, and then everything crashed,” she said. “I didn't know what it was, but it was over fast — it just lasted about two minutes.”

Campos said she and her four sons, ages 2 to 14, stood in shock in the living room before realizing what had happened. Shortly afterward, she heard sirens, and a San Antonio police officer knocked on her door to tell her a tornado may have struck.

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Trash was strewn across Campos' backyard, and the roofing of a back patio had been mangled by the wind.

“It could have been much worse,” she said.

Nearby, in the 100 block of Farrel Drive, Daniel Martinez awoke to a loud bang. Martinez, 27, said his younger brother pried open the front door, which was being held shut by the wind, and saw a mailbox flying through the air. After several minutes, the winds quieted, he said, and neighbors emerged from their homes to survey the damage.

The roof on his parents' house had been blown off, Martinez said, and a neighbor's tree had become lodged in the windshield of a truck.

“It was very surprising,” said Martinez, whose family chose to remain in their damaged home. “We're not really known for our tornadoes here in San Antonio.”

Volunteers with the San Antonio Chapter of the American Red Cross assisted five families whose homes were damaged, spokeswoman Lucy Lashover said. The 11 adults and 8 children received food, clothing and temporary lodging.

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At the Valley Hi post office, the storm tossed 19 postal trucks around like toys and bent lights in a parking lot.

The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado about 50 yards wide touched down near Loop 410 and Medina Base Road about 1:20 a.m. Sunday before dissipating about 1.5 miles north of there near Allenhurst and Springdale drives.

Its strength has not been determined, and a weather service official will continue his investigation today, when he hopes to view security-camera video from a nearby H-E-B.

“We don't get a lot of tornados around here,” forecaster Bob Fogarty said.

According to published reports, the last tornado to touch down in San Antonio was a downtown twister associated with Hurricane Dolly that damaged about 25 homes in a four-block area in July 2008. With a wind speed of about 80 mph, it measured F0 on the Enhanced Fujita scale.

After a drizzly day Saturday, steady rain began falling after midnight and heavy rain was reported between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. Fogarty said.

It was enough to cause flooding and break the daily rainfall record of 2.76 inches, set Oct. 9, 1990, according to the weather service. Fogarty said the all-time daily rainfall record is 11.26 inches on Oct. 17, 1998.

“This was a significant rain event,” he said. “It was a good one, because it was widespread; it got the aquifer good. Every little bit helps.”

During the heaviest rainfall, CPS Energy reported 9,300 outages, spokesman Victor Robledo said. By midday, about 2,300 customers remained in the dark, and by the evening, the number had dwindled to 33, he said.

“Most of the outages are due to the high winds and heavy rain,” Robledo said. “The outages are all over the city, and we have quite a few employees out in the field to restore service.”

San Antonio Fire Department crews were busy Sunday morning responding to reports of people stuck in high water, including two people stranded on an air mattress in a park near Old Highway 90 and Callaghan Road about 6 a.m.

Police also were busy with a higher-than-normal number of crashes because of wet roads.

Although the soaking rain was welcomed in drought-ridden South Central Texas, it barely dented the area's precipitation deficit for the year. Fogarty said annual rainfall is about 12 inches below normal, counting Sunday's rain.

Rain chances drop to 20 percent today, officials said, and the rest of the week is expected to be dry, with temperatures in the 90s.

“The summer just doesn't want to end,” Fogarty said.

This article originally appeared in the Oct. 10 San Antonio Express-News.